From the start, Justine believed in forever. When she met Stuart, something inside her just knew. They dated for six months before getting engaged and married the following year. It wasn’t dramatic or complicated; it was just one of those stories where two people fall in step and never look back. Their wedding day, August 15, 2015, began what she thought would be decades of building a life together.
The young couple dreamed about family, and soon enough, their first son arrived. On September 13, 2016, baby Grayson was born. Stuart lit up with fatherhood, the kind of dad who worked hard all day as an electrician and still came home eager to scoop up his boy. Everything he did, every decision, circled back to his family. Justine saw clearly how being a husband and dad defined him in the best possible way.
But their forever was cut short. On a cold Monday morning, November 13, 2017, Stuart kissed his wife goodbye before heading out to work. Justine stayed behind with their 14-month-old son, already preparing for her shift as a nurse. Within 15 minutes, everything changed. An impaired driver struck Stuart’s truck, and at just 28 years old, he was killed instantly.
The phone call came midmorning. Justine’s mother-in-law called in a panic, begging her to go home. She wouldn’t say what was wrong, only that the police had shown up. In the background, Justine could hear her toddler crying, so she knew Grayson was okay. That left only one possibility. On the drive home, she called back, desperate for answers. And that’s when the words she dreaded tumbled out. An accident. Stu was gone. Justine’s world shattered in that moment. She pulled over, called her mom overseas, her sister, and her friends. Her grief was so raw that they begged her not to drive, but she kept going. She needed to get to her baby, the only piece of normal left in her life.
That day blurred into chaos. People filled the house, and she had to repeat it again and again: Stu had been killed by an impaired driver. As if that wasn’t enough, she also shared the secret she hadn’t told many yet, she was six weeks pregnant. A young mom of 2, only 28 herself, suddenly staring down a future she had never imagined. “How am I a widow at 28? How am I supposed to raise two under two without him?” she asked through tears. None of it seemed real. It felt like a cruel TV plotline, not her life.
Her second son, Coby Stuart, was born the following summer. His middle name carried the weight of the father he would never meet. Justine held him with joy, but also with grief. Every milestone reminded her of the man missing beside her. Grayson’s first day of school, Coby’s first laugh, and even a family dinner. The ache of what should have been never went away.
Before kissing him goodbye that last morning, she promised Stuart she would love their children enough for both of them. This promise became her anchor. Some days, it meant getting out of bed when she wanted to stay under the covers. Some days, it meant reminding herself she was still here, still needed, still capable of love even with a broken heart.
Losing a husband to an impaired driver rewrote her life story. Her children will grow up without their father, and she will never grow old with the man she chose. That loss is permanent, a scar that time won’t erase. But out of the pain, she carries a mission. “Please, for the sake of families like mine, don’t drive impaired,” she says. “Find a safe ride. Call someone. Stay put. Do anything but get behind the wheel.” She urges others to remember the campaign that now defines her life: Arrive Alive, drive sober.
Her hope is simple. If sharing her story can stop even one person from making that choice, if it can save one family from this endless grief, then her husband’s death will not be in vain. Behind every news headline about impaired driving, there is a young mom of 2 holding her babies, trying to figure out how to move forward without the man she thought would be beside her forever.
